Brazil 1-1 Chile [Brazil wins 3-2 on penalties] (Round of 16)

This was football at its best. At least from a neutral point of view. I bet the Brazilians would not want to went through a match like this ever again.

The host and 5 time world champions started the match strong. They dominated possession and the match. Neymar and Hulk were causing trouble for the Chile's defenders but not quite able to get the ball into the back of the Chile's goal.

After earning a corner in the 18th minute which was taken by Neymar, Tiago Silva managed to get a flick on it to guide the ball to David Luiz who was lurking at the far post. Having a better position than his marker, Luiz managed to get a touch on the ball to guide it into the empty net and giving them the lead and caused Bela Horizonte to erupt in pure jubilation.

David Luiz

The lead however just lasted for 14 minutes. After receiving a throw in from Marcelo, Hulk's attempted return pass was stolen by Eduardo Vargas and quickly crosses the ball into the penalty box. Alexis Sanchez picked up the pass and just pass the ball into the net to beat Julio Cesar. There were pure silence in the stadium except for a small portion in red.

Alexis Sanchez

If Akira Toriyama created Super Saiyans character, the Chileans were definitely super human. They hassled Brazil in the second half relentlessly. There were no display of the Samba football, there were no display of Neymar's brilliance, and there were almost none possession for the Brazilians. This was how dominating the Chileans were. They were running almost non-stop for about 80 minutes.

The Chileans flow of football was disrupted when Arturo Vidal was brought off believed due to his knee injury that did not allow him to see through the match. As the final 10 minutes of normal time left, the Chileans did looked a little out of breath. Brazil took the chance to torment their opponent for the final 10 minutes in search for a winner but to no avail. Chile did have a few chances to gave Brazil a scare in the dying minutes as well but could not find the winning goal.

At the end of extra time, Chilean substitute Mauricio Pinilla almost put Brazil to the sword. His long range effort managed to beat Cesar but unfortunately did not beat the crossbar, hence bringing the match to penalties.

Mauricio Pinilla almost eliminating the host nation.

Cesar turned out to be the hero of his nation by saving two penalties to put the score at 2-2 after 4 penalties each for both teams. Neymar converted his kick while Gonzalo Jara smashes his kick into the post to allow the host to advance into the last eight.

Julio Cesar

Chile had the Brazilians number for the most part of the match. Unfortunately for them, they could not finish the job in normal time. Going into extra time, I knew Chile would struggle after playing aggressively for 90 minutes. As the match progressed to penalties, Chile were always going to be second best. The host barely managed to squeeze themselves into the quarter finals.

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